Tag: celebrity book club

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Meena Harris Adds Phenomenal Book Club to Growing Multimedia Portfolio

Meena Harris attends the Los Angeles screening of “Women of the Movement”. The series is based on the true story of Mamie Till-Mobley, who in 1955 risked her life to find justice after her son Emmett was brutally murdered in the Jim Crow South. The six-episode series will air in three parts beginning Jan. 6, 2022 for three consecutive weeks on ABC.

For a 2021 literary lookback, we noticed Phenomenal Media mature this year with the addition of a book club focused on exposing readers to works by underrepresented authors, particularly women of color.

The four-year-old company founded by Meena Harris launched the Phenomenal Book Club in November with choosing The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story and its young readers’ companion The 1619 Project: Born on the Water as the inaugural picks and inviting author and editor Nikole Hannah-Jones and illustrator Nikkolas Smith to a virtual event. Phenomenal Book Club was the exclusive book club partner for the books based on The New York Times project named after the year enslaved Africans first came to the U.S.

A bona fide social media star, lawyer, and activist, Meena is best known for being the niece of our first female, first Black, and first Asian second-in-command, Vice President Kamala Harris. Her pro-vaccine Dec. 21 tweet announcing she has a breakthrough case of Covid-19 after receiving her booster shot went viral with over 70,000 likes. The success online, her family connections, and her entrepreneurial activism spirit has opened doors for her to grow her media company named after Maya Angelou’s famous poem “Phenomenal Woman.”

Besides her history-making aunt, Meena’s family tree also consists of her mother Maya Harris, who has also developed a reputation expressing her activism via Twitter as a lawyer and policy expert; her stepfather Tony West, the chief legal officer at Uber; and her late grandmother Shyamala Gopalan, a cancer researcher and civil rights activist whose story is told in Kamala’s 2020 memoir The Truths We Hold: An American Journey.

Expressing activism through books

Like her aunt, Meena has a publishing career. She wrote two children’s books: Ambitious Girl, published by Little, Brown Young Readers and illustrated by Marissa Valdez, about a girl finding her journey to overcome the “too ambitious” label; and Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea, published by HarperCollins’ imprint Balzer + Bray and illustrated by Ana Ramírez González, about the kid versions of her aunt and mother organizing their community. Both New York Times best-selling books came out in the last year and most likely served as inspiration for Phenomenal Book Club.

Meena’s company started in 2017 as Phenomenal Woman Action Campaign, a community-oriented organization focused on social causes mainly through message shirts. Top campaigns include the #PhenomenalVoter campaign to encourage voters to exercise their right in the 2018 midterm elections to the Justice for Breonna Taylor last year that manufactured shirts saying “Arrest the Cops Who Killed Breonna Taylor.”

So far, the merch maker’s interaction with over 1,000 celebrities, athletes, and activists has catapulted it into a multimedia venture that also includes Phenomenal Productions that’s described as having “a specific emphasis on communities of color and underrepresented voting blocs.”

Curating books for children

The mother of two daughters, Meena has voiced her opinion that anti-racism works need to be incorporated into children’s libraries through their parents since schools on average have failed to add these works to their curricula. She wrote in The Washington Post op-ed published Nov. 15:

Of course, for Black and Brown parents, this isn’t exactly a revolutionary concept. Many of us have already taken it upon ourselves to give our children the full, accurate history lesson we know they must hear — just as our parents did for us, and their parents for them. But it’s time all American families start taking time at home to discuss the injustices that shaped our nation’s past, the work still to be done in our present, and the values that should define our future.

The new book club will announce selections quarterly and highlight a book already published between those selections. One of the missions of the book club is to aid the publishing industry in upholding its commitments to anti-racism and equity after the George Floyd protests.

Community chats last week were featured on the book club’s Instagram for its first highlight, Severance by Ling Ma, and promoting a giveaway on social media for 50 editions. For the holidays, Phenomenal is selling sweatshirts with a reproductive rights message and cookbooks by women of color.

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‘Passing’ Cast Members Discuss Differences Between Novel and Film in Netflix Book Club

Netflix

*Spoilers ahead! Read Passing, then check out the book review on shelit.com and watch the film on Netflix*

Netflix Book Club uploaded its first video episode in a series looking at the streaming giant’s film adaptations based on popular books. The inaugural selection is the almost century-old novel Passing by Nella Larsen that became Netflix’s most recent book-to-film adaptation that started streaming last week.

Now live on Netflix’s YouTube and Facebook channels, “But Have You Read The Book?” is hosted by Orange Is the New Black star Uzo Aduba sitting down at Starbucks Reserve Roastery New York with Passing film director Rebecca Hall and actors Ruth Negga and André Holland.

The film stars Tessa Thompson playing Irene Redfield, a Black woman in 1929 Harlem, who bumps into childhood friend Clare Kendry Bellew, played by Ruth, as they realize though they’re of the same race they are living on separate sides of the color line with Clare passing as a White woman. Based on the 1929 novel by Harlem Renaissance royalty Nella Larsen, the film and the book explores a toxic friendship where the two main characters wonder if the grass is greener on the other side as their lives unravel amid the fear of Clare’s dangerous secret becoming public.

Rebecca starts the book club conversation with what she says became stringing together her own family history with her grandfather being African American but living as a White man in the U.K.

“I grew up looking at my mother, thinking you’re a Black woman, you look to me like a Black woman, but that’s not in your lexicon,” she says. “It’s not how you’re talking about yourself. It’s not how you’re living your life because she wasn’t given that because her father was passing.” 

Once she read the book, she says she had a better understanding of the situation surrounding her grandfather and countless others like him.

“This book was a big turning point for me because I didn’t know that there was this word ‘passing,'” she says. “This was something that many, many, many people of color in this country did to get better lives for themselves.”

Passing, or assuming another usually racial identity based on appearance, became a pathway for people of color to pursue their dreams and unlock their potential, Ruth says.

“To be quite clear about passing, many times it wasn’t a rejection of yourself, your Black self,” she says. “It wasn’t a rejection of your Black culture at all. It was a choice to choose a path of access. Access to what we would call White privilege.” 

While her character Clare is considered the main one passing, the book unpacks the layers of Irene as a person also passing but in a different sense, such as a wife and friend becoming unstable when she believes she sees sparks fly between Clare and her husband Brian, played by André.

“Clare is obviously passing,” Rebecca says. “She’s gay when she needs to be. She’s straight when she needs to be. She behaves like a man when she needs to be. She behaves like a woman when she needs to be. She’s Black. She’s White. She’s this walking duality.”

Tessa Thompson, adorned in a Chanel choker, reads an excerpt in her taped cameo from when her character Irene notices the piercing gaze from Clare in the hotel tearoom where they reconnect. Irene is distraught the stranger—who she doesn’t know is her old friend Clare—could tell she’s a Black woman passing to gain entry into the posh hotel.

For slight changes in the film, Rebecca talks about how she allows Irene to reveal to her White author friend Hugh Wentworth, played by Bill Camp, that Clare is passing as White. It’s a dangerous move that Irene barely dodges in the book, failing to remove any suspicion of Clare at a time when she seems to notice Clare’s charisma suck the air out of a room and leave Irene envious. The book has Irene wrestle with revealing Clare’s secret, knowing she has the ante to destroy her friend while she also wants to protect her friend. 

Irene’s back-and-forth with herself doesn’t save Clare from her tragic demise after being found out by her White bigoted husband John, played by Alexander Skarsgård. As John bangs on the door of a party in Harlem full of Black guests, he darts toward Clare, calling her a liar. Clare positions herself in front of an open window to get away from John and closer to Irene, but the sway of arms somehow forces Clare to fall out of the fifth-story window and into the snow. But whose arm is at fault is a mystery in the book as well as the film.

“Nella Larsen keeps it ambiguous for a good reason,” Rebecca says. “She’s also pointing out that it doesn’t really matter because everyone is sort of complicit in something. And also whatever happened, Irene does feel like she was responsible.”

To sum up the story, Uzo says the phrase spoken by Irene when discussing Clare with Hugh about everything not appearing as it seems threads the film together.

“We’re watching characters who can exist and move through life in ways that might not be as they seem,” she says. “I think it was consistent with the larger narrative being told throughout.”

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Netflix Book Club to Discuss Nella Larsen Classic ‘Passing’ in Time for Film Release

Coining itself the home of the “world’s most talked-about book adaptations,” streaming giant Netflix is debuting a book club series hosted by a star of one of its first book-to-TV hits. 

Orange Is the New Black star Uzo Aduba will host the Netflix Book Club‘s social series “But Have You Read the Book?” premiering Nov. 16 on streamer’s YouTube and Facebook channels. November’s book selection is Passing by Nella Larsen, which will also have a Nov. 10 book-to-film release on Netflix starring Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson.

The first book club episode will have Uzo interview the film’s stars and director Rebecca Hall.

Netflix

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve asked friends, ‘But have you read the book?’ So I’m excited to host Netflix Book Club and bring together loyal book fans, TV and movie obsessives and the creators behind their favorite stories,” Uzo said in a statement. “I can’t wait to dive deep into the creative process and what it takes to bring a book to life.”

Passing follows two Black women who are fair-skinned enough to pass as White. Clare Kendry sees her childhood friend Irene Redfield in a hotel, and they chat about what life has been like since their upbringing in Chicago. Irene quickly learns that Clare has been passing full-time as a White woman married to a White man who has no idea his wife is Black. With her complexion, Irene can pass, too, but she chooses to have her Black family and engage with the Black community she’s always known. Clare tries to convince Irene she is living the ideal life until Irene meets Clare’s bigoted husband and realizes the danger Clare has put herself in. Both women struggle to have each other in their lives in case anyone finds out their shared secret.

Nella Larsen, who was born in 1891 to a Black father from the Danish West Indies and a White mother from Denmark, was considered one of the most well-known female authors during the Harlem Renaissance. Passing, her second novel released in 1929 after her debut Quicksand, soon became a standout at the time in the elite arts community, rivaling the popularity of Zora Neale Hurston‘s 1937 classic Their Eyes Were Watching God. Nella received a Guggenheim Fellowship to write a third novel in 1930, according to her current publisher Penguin Random House, but she couldn’t find a publisher. She died in 1964.

Passing also has enjoyed modern-day success thanks to the film and the best-selling gold of Brit Bennett’s 2019 literary fiction masterpiece The Vanishing Half about fair-skinned Black twin sisters who lead separate lives as one decides to live her life as a White woman. Brit, who recently had a book-signing cameo on HBO‘s Insecure, wrote the introduction to the newest copies of Passing. The Vanishing Half is being developed into a miniseries for HBO.

“From Bridgerton, To All the Boys and Sweet Magnolias to Queen’s Gambit, Unorthodox, Virgin River and of course Orange Is the New Black, Netflix loves bringing books to life on screen and creating conversation with passionate readers and fans,” said Netflix chief marketing officer Bozoma Saint John in a statement about the book club series. The marketing maven herself has a forthcoming book with Viking Books called The Urgent Life that will be focused on her life during and after her late husband’s cancer diagnosis.

Starbucks is partnering with Netflix to bring the book club to social media.

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Beach Reads, Memoirs Dominate the Summer: July 2020 Celebrity Book Club Picks

With the impact of the anti-Black racism protests last month, some of the celebrity-founded book clubs kept the focus on Black stories as others chose the top books of the summer including reads perfect for the beach (if it’s open) and texts exploring gender and sexual identity.

AMERIE’S BOOK CLUB

You Exist Too Much by Zaina Arafat

The debut novel features a Palestinian American girl who is yelled at by a group of men for showing her legs on a trip to Bethlehem. The experience eventually allows her to tell her mother she’s queer as she moves to different spaces to find her true self.

“I rooted for her and hurt for her as she tried to find her way through one bad decision after another,” Amerie wrote on Instagram. “The main character, whose name is never revealed, stayed with me long after I closed the book, as did her hope for yet another shot at love.”

BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB

The Dragons, The Giant, The Women: A Memoir by Wayétu Moore

The author of She Would Be King and founder of nonprofit One Moore Book has a new memoir about her experience living through the civil war in Liberia. At five years old, she’s waiting to be reunited with her mother, who’s studying in New York, then her world is turned upside down with the war. Her family flees on foot from their home and get smuggled across the border of Sierra Leone, where they get a chance to fly to the U.S.

Belletrist, founded by actress Emma Roberts and producer Karah Preiss, also chose the Black woman-owned Semicolon Bookstore in Chicago as its indie bookstore of the month.

GMA BOOK CLUB

Sex and Vanity by Kevin Kwan

The Crazy Rich Asians series creator’s new book takes place on the island of Capri with a half-Chinese, half-White woman trying to fall for the well-off White man her family likes while avoiding another man, who is Chinese, she keeps suppressing her feelings for.

“It’s a summer escape full of travel, food, fun and fashion,” Kevin told Good Morning America. “The outrageous characters will make your crazy families seem almost normal.”

KAIA GERBER’S BOOK CLUB

Darling Days: A Memoir by iO Tillett Wright

Born female, the author comes of age in downtown New York with a young widowed mother and adopts the persona of a boy amid the 1980s “intersection of punk, poverty, heroin, and art.”
“In talking to him about his experience publishing this book, he taught me that writers who happen to be queer too often are dismissed as ‘queer writers’ and their books, regardless of the topics they cover, end up exclusively stocked on ‘LGBT author’ shelves,” Kaia wrote in an Instagram post. “Darling Days goes far beyond this—it is a story about neglect, creativity, internalized homophobia, and the beauty you can make out of pain. it is a New York story of growing up and out of the life you are born into.” 

NONAME’S BOOK CLUB

Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis

Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex by Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith

Rapper Noname picks Are Prisons Obsolete?, a book that calls for the abolition of prisons and how it will benefit society as a whole. The homie pick, Captive Genders, comes from Che Gossett. It studies trans and gender-queer people in prison with the most recent version including a foreword from CeCe MacDonald, who was imprisoned for killing a transphobic attacker, and an essay by Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. Army soldier who transitioned amid getting sentenced for espionage.

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB

Deacon King Kong by James McBride

This novel tells the story of a church deacon who shoots the neighborhood drug dealer point blank range in front of the community and the aftermath.

“In naming Deacon King Kong my latest Oprah’s Book Club selection, I am hoping readers will find in it what I did: sorrow, joy, resilience, humanity, and an understanding that while we struggle with pain and trauma, we can find shelter in one another—just as the characters in the Cause housing project in McBride’s Brooklyn do,” Oprah wrote in the Instagram announcement. 

READ WITH JENNA – TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB

Friends and Strangers by J. Courtney Sullivan

Jenna Bush Hager’s book club via her Today Show gig is one of the hottest books of the season. The main character is a new mother who hires a college senior as a baby-sitter. As they grow close, the baby-sitter’s relationship with the mother’s father-in-law leads to a betrayal.

“I wanted to explore American life in the pre-Trump years and sort of how we got here,” the author said in an article introducing the book club pick. “The book very much digs into the gig economy, the shrinking safety net and the notion that privilege takes many different forms.”

REESE’S BOOK CLUB

I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

After the book club delayed its selection announcement in June, actress Reese Witherspoon directed her book club to make two selections—a first to recognize current events. Both books will be read over June and July.

“Elevating women’s stories is at the core of Reese’s Book Club. I love how this community champions the narrative for women and we are just getting started,” the book club placed in a graphic on Instagram. “Unity and understanding through the lens of storytelling is how we will continue these meaningful conversations.”

Readers expressed their disappointment in the comments over the book club adding a book by a Black woman author last minute and not pushing back the book by a White woman author to another month.

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Recognizing Racial Injustice Delays and Defines Announcements: June 2020 Celebrity Book Club Picks

The deaths of Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and George Floyd and the subsequent worldwide protests to combat racial injustice affected the celebrity book clubs with many delaying their monthly book selection announcements.

Most book clubs make the official announcement on social media the first week of the month, but some news on the latest picks came the second week of June and highlighted works by black women authors.

AMERIE’S BOOK CLUB

My Vanishing Country by Bakari Sellers

“In his unapologetically emotional memoir, CNN analyst @BakariSellers shares what it is to grow up “Black, country, and proud,” Amerie wrote in the book club’s Instagram announcement. “From the tragic event that helped to shape his life though it occurred before his birth, to his rise in politics while pursuing his education, to his dedication to not allowing those in his rural South Carolina community to be forgotten, to his personal experiences with anxiety, Bakari Sellers’ story left me amazed while also leaving me to wonder just how he managed to fit so much life into such a short time.”

BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB

GMA BOOK CLUB

The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett

Actress Emma Roberts’ book club and Good Morning America‘s book club chose the same book again this month along with other major national book clubs. For May, both book clubs chose The Book of V. by Anna Solomon.

Belletrist shared that it delayed its announcement due to the civil unrest.

“We know we’re about a week later than usual, but we wanted to spend last week thinking about the ways in which we, as an online community, will be moving forward as we approach this seismic shift in our collective consciousness.”

“We have loved Brit’s book since we first got it a few months ago and are very excited to finally announce,” Belletrist stated in its message on Instagram. “Please stay tuned as we will have a more in depth conversation with Brit towards the end of the month, and look out for our weekly quotes, which are curated this month by this month’s author!”

“It’s a compelling read about twin sisters, inseparable as children, who ultimately choose to live in two very different worlds: one black, and one white,” Good Morning America‘s book club wrote in its post. “It’s a powerful story about family, compassion, identity and roots.”

KAIA GERBER’S BOOK CLUB

Kaia Gerber shares book selections every week for her book club on Instagram, but she decided to give her friend Janaya Future Khan, international ambassador for Black Lives Matter, a platform on her account with over 5.6 million followers. She bookstagrammed a pile including Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Danielle Allen’s Cuz: An American Tragedy, which follows the author’s journey in trying to rescue her younger cousin who dies after incarceration for a crime he commits as a teenager.

 

“in lieu of book club this week, i am honored that my friend and international ambassador of @blklivesmatter @janayathefuture will be going live on my page. they have been such a leader and powerful voice,” she wrote in her post. “they helped educate me on understanding the weight of privilege and the importance of these protests—and they have continuously and tirelessly worked to give people an understanding of what the mission of Black Lives Matter means for this country and for this world.”

NONAME’S BOOK CLUB

Blood in My Eye by George L. Jackson

Race Music: From Bebop to Hip-Hop by Guthrie Ramsey

Rapper Noname’s book club had selected one book last month, a change from its two-books-a-month template, but the book club returned to two books due to what’s going on in the world now.

“I felt it was important to go back to our old routine of picking two books a month,” Noname said on the book club’s Instagram profile. “In addition to reading Race Music I chose Blood In My Eye by George Jackson. Books about revolutionary action and resistance are vital during this time.” 

Blood In My Eye was written by George Jackson, who died days after completing the book in 1971 at the hands of San Quentin State Prison guards during an alleged escape attempt. He was serving a sentence for stealing $70 from a gas station.

The homie pick, Race Music: From Bebop to Hip-Hop, is from the book club’s project manager Shakira in honor of June being Black Music Month.

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker

Oprah is finishing up Hidden Valley Road, according to her book club’s schedule though it may have been pushed back with giving space online for the current civil unrest. The book club has posted about anti-racism books to read for kids and young adults.

READ WITH JENNA – TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB

A Burning by Megha Majumdar

The debut novel surrounds an ambitious Muslim girl from the slums who is accused of executing a terrorist attack because of a careless Facebook comment.

“I think books are a tool for empathy,” Jenna said in her announcement. “And now when we are stuck at home—and I definitely won’t be traveling to India this summer—this is a tool for all of us to learn more about the plight of people all over the world.”

“I started writing from a place of alarm and anger,” Majumdar told Today in the article. “India has been changing in frightening ways and growing more intolerant of minority communities, more extremist. I definitely hope that readers will see resonances in the U.S. as well.”

REESE’S BOOK CLUB

I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

After the book club delayed its selection announcement, actress Reese Witherspoon directed her book club to make two selections—a first to recognize current events. Both books will be read over June and July.

“Elevating women’s stories is at the core of Reese’s Book Club. I love how this community champions the narrative for women and we are just getting started,” the book club placed in a graphic on Instagram. Unity and understanding through the lens of storytelling is how we will continue these meaningful conversations.”

Readers expressed their disappointment in the comments over the book club adding a book by a black woman author last minute and not pushing back the book by a white woman author to another month.

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May 2020 Celebrity Book Club Picks

AMERIE’S BOOK CLUB

Singer and author Amerie will read Deacon King Kong by James McBride with her book club.

“James McBride tackles trauma, the Black migration, community, racism (of both Southern and Northern variety), and the perils of Growing Up While Black with subtlety and humor,” she wrote in her Instagram announcement. “In his deft hands, the exploration of such themes within a premise in which a perpetually drunk deacon shoots a teen drug dealer is not depressing or gratuitous, but intimate, funny, and full of hope.”

BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB

GMA BOOK CLUB

Emma Roberts, the actress and book connoisseur of Belletrist, and Good Morning America crowned The Book of V. by Anna Solomon as their monthly book club pick.

The book describes the intersecting story between a struggling writer in Brooklyn balancing motherhood and being a second wife, a  political wife who receives a humiliating favor from her husband, and an independent young woman in ancient Persia who may have become a sacrifice to the king in order to save her people.

“I think a lot of readers will find some part of themselves in this book,” the author tells GMA. Whether you relate most to the headstrong Esther, who does not want to become queen to Vivian Barr, a senator’s wife torn between following conventions and breaking free or to Lily, a contemporary mother of two struggling to figure out what she even wants, you’ll recognize and root for the characters in this book.”

KAIA GERBER’S BOOK CLUB

 

Rising teen supermodel and the daughter of legend Cindy Crawford, Kaia Gerber started a weekly book club in March. This week, she announced to her Instagram followers that she’s reading Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens.

She will discuss the book on Friday, May 15 with her mother on Instagram Live at 5 p.m. PST.

Since her book selection changes every week with Instagram Live interviews with authors and others in the literary realm, check out her social media channel to keep up with selections for the rest of the month.

NONAME’S BOOK CLUB

Busy revolutionizing the book club model, indie rapper Noname’s book club usually selects two books each month particularly for readers of color. She chooses a book, which this month has yet to be announced, and the homie pick, the classic black revolutionary memoir Assata: An Autobiography by Assata Shakur, which comes from Blake and Delency, the founders of People’s Breakfast Oakland.

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker is still Oprah Winfrey’s book club pick, which was named at the beginning of April.

The biography of a family where six out of 12 of the children were born with schizophrenia and became a major source of research for scientists working to understand the genetics behind the devastating mental illness.

“This is a riveting true story of an American family that reads like a medical detective journey,” Oprah announced in a video. “It reveals the shame, denial, shock, confusion and misunderstanding of mental illness at a time when no one was really sure what schizophrenia was or how to treat it.”

READ WITH JENNA – TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB

Through her Today Show correspondent gig, former first daughter Jenna Bush Hager chose All Adults Here by Emma Straub for her May selection.

“I loved it because I thought, on one hand, it was light and funny,” Jenna said in an article. “On the other, Emma Straub has the capability of writing in a way that explores these themes that are important and interesting.”

REESE’S BOOK CLUB

Actress and producer Reese Witherspoon picked The Henna Artist by Indian-born author Alka Joshi for her monthly book club.

This debut novel surrounds a teenager in India who escapes an abusive marriage and ends up in 1950s Jaipur where she rises as a prominent henna artist and confidante to the wealthy women of the upper class who could never know her secret.

“This vivid story is so rich and complex… reading about Lakshmi’s journey from escaping an abusive marriage to becoming one of the most sought-after henna artists in Jaipur captivated me from the first chapter to the final page,” Reese shared on her book club website.

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‘Sistas’ Actress Novi Brown Starts a Book Club

Still from BET's "Sistas" episode 118. (Photo: Charles Bergmann/BET/Tyler Vision, LLC)

Novi Brown, who currently stars in BET’s Wednesday night hit Tyler Perry’s Sistas, has joined the book club realm.

Naturally Lit Book Club, according to its Instagram profile, will select two books a month and focus on “breaking generational curses” and “discover new ways of thinking.”

Right now, the selections are at three books: What You Think of Me Is None of My Business by Terry Cole-Whittaker, The Hidden Messages in the Water by Masaru Emoto, and The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B-8DKNgBI8j/

The Afro-German actress plays Sabrina Hollins, a bank teller looking for love and supporting her three girlfriends in their search for love in Sistas, which premiered on BET and sister channel BET Her last October. The season finale airs Wednesday, April 29.

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April 2020 Celebrity Book Club Picks

AMERIE’S BOOK CLUB

Nothing to See Here by Kevin Wilson

Singer-turned-writer Amerie chose Kevin Wilson’s New York Times best-seller and former Read With Jenna book club pick for her April book.

“An outrageous yet grounded read that had me laughing out loud and tearing up in the same paragraph, Kevin Wilson’s Nothing to See Here explores parenthood and found family, while also addressing the very frightening phenomena of spontaneous combustion, of which, like the author, I grew up scared to death,” Amerie wrote in her Instagram post announcing the book selection.

BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB

Writers & Lovers by Lily King

 

Actress Emma Roberts’ book club chose Lily King’s new novel. The book was also a March selection for the Today Show’s Read With Jenna book club.

 

In an Instagram post on her personal account, Emma said, “So excited to read along with you guys and discuss!”

 

GMA BOOK CLUB

Oona Out of Order by Margarita Montimore

Good Morning America‘s book club named Margarita Montimore’s debut novel. In the U.K., the same book is titled The Rearranged Life of Oona Lockhart. Both have abstract covers of Oona’s face with the GMA book club reposting some of their favorites from readers.

“I’m so grateful ‘GMA’ has chosen my novel ‘Oona Out of Order’ as its latest book club pick,” Margarita told GMA in its story on the book club pick. “I know the whole world feels like it’s out of order right now, and social distancing is tough, but join ‘GMA’s’ Book Club and we’ll all feel less isolated as we get lost in this uplifting story.”

NONAME’S BOOK CLUB

Mean by Myriam Gurba

War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America’s Colony by Nelson A. Denis

Indie rapper Noname’s book club usually selects two books each month, with Noname picking one and someone else naming the “homie pick.” Noname chose Mean by Myriam Gurba and Yahdon Israel, founder of Brooklyn-based @literaryswagbookclub, chose War Against All Puerto Ricans.

The book club says it stands in solidarity with the prisoners who participate in the book club over demanding more protection such as masks during the coronavirus COVID-19 forced quarantine. After announcing it had to cancel all in-person meetings due the pandemic, the book club recently started its own newspaper, Out of Print, for Patreon members.

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB

Hidden Valley Road: Inside the Mind of an American Family by Robert Kolker

After the controversy around her last book club pick American Dirt, Oprah Winfrey chose the biography of a family where six out of 12 of the children were born with schizophrenia and became a major source of research for scientists working to understand the genetics behind the devastating mental illness.

“This is a riveting true story of an American family that reads like a medical detective journey,” Oprah announced in a video. “It reveals the shame, denial, shock, confusion and misunderstanding of mental illness at a time when no one was really sure what schizophrenia was or how to treat it.”

READ WITH JENNA – TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB

Valentine by Elizabeth Wetmore

Former first daughter and Today Show co-host Jenna Bush Hager picked Elizabeth Wetmore’s debut novel that publisher Harper Collins describes as “explores the lingering effects of a brutal crime on the women of one small Texas oil town in the 1970s.”

“Elizabeth really developed these characters that I felt like I knew,” Jenna said about the debut novel on Today’s website. “I found myself missing them when the story was over. The women are complicated. They are a lot of things at once.”

As a native Texan, Jenna added that Elizabeth portrays Texas life just right in Valentine.

“I spent a good portion of my childhood eavesdropping on my mother and her girlfriends as they sat out on the back porch after dinner, and I listened to them telling stories,” Elizabeth told Today. “They would sit out there with their cigarettes and mix drinks because it was the ’70s, and I listened to them rehashing their days.”

REESE’S BOOK CLUB

Untamed by Glennon Doyle

Rising book club queen Reese Witherspoon, who’s currently starring in Little Fires Everywhere based on Celeste Ng’s novel, has chosen well-known memoirist Glennon Doyle’s latest book, Untamed.

 

“It’s an absolute joy to announce Glennon Doyle’s UNTAMED as my April book pick,” Reese wrote at the top of her Hello Sunshine announcement email. “This memoir is so packed with incredible insight about what it means to be a woman today, what it means to be “good,” and what woman will do in order to be loved. I swear I highlighted something in EVERY chapter. This book really spoke to me in so many ways!”

 

Glennon also wrote an essay about her writing process on Hello Sunshine’s website.
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Emma Watson Steps Back From Our Shared Shelf Book Club

Instagram

Emma Watson, the celeb bookwoman of Harry Potter film fame who made a recent appearance in the latest Little Women rendition, announced she will be stepping away from her public book club.

Last week, Our Shared Shelf put up a message on Goodreads from founder Emma, who said instead of having book club moderators she will return to recommending titles on social media.

“My wish is that this community continues to share and announce their own book recommendations with this hashtag keeping what we’ve built together alive and well for the future,” she wrote in the message. “I am excited to see it continue to grow and mature. I might just be reading along with you! Keep your eyes peeled as I announce other books later this year.”

Emma joins Florence Welch of alt rock pop group Florence + The Machine who announced a hiatus in July with her book club, Between Two Books. It also had the same format as Our Shared Shelf of selecting two books at a time.

Our Shared Shelf almost has 231,000 members on Goodreads.

The celebrity-helmed book clubs seem to be popular, but some celebrities have been honest about the hardships of managing a book club despite their star power and resources. Oprah just revived her book club in a new format with the backing of Apple. Kim Kardashian and Chrissy Teigen admitted in 2018 they had chosen an initial book and interviewed the author the prior year but couldn’t follow through with the concept.

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January 2020 Celebrity Book Club Picks

AMERIE’S BOOK CLUB

The Book of Lost Saints by Daniel Jose Older

“At times funny and at times somber, I couldn’t stop turning the pages, waiting to learn more about Marisol and Ramón’s intertwined past and present,” singer and literary influencer Amerie wrote in an Instagram post, adding that the author will join her for the end-of-the-month live chat.

BELLETRIST BOOK CLUB

Creatures by Crissy Van Meter

“On the eve of Evangeline’s wedding, on the shore of Winter Island, a dead whale is trapped in the harbor, the groom may be lost at sea, and Evie’s mostly absent mother has shown up out of the blue,” the book club co-founded by actress Emma Roberts posted on Instagram. “We can’t wait for you to read along!”

GMA BOOK CLUB

Long Bright River by Liz Moore

“‘Long Bright River’ is at once heart-pounding and heart-wrenching: a gripping suspense novel that is also a moving story of sisters, addiction, and the formidable ties that persist between place, family, and fate,” Good Morning America posted in its latest book announcement.

NONAME’S BOOK CLUB

Die Nigger Die! by H. Rap Brown

Sabrina & Corina: Stories by Kali Fajardo-Anstine

The book club serving readers of color founded by rapper Noname announced on Twitter Noname chose Sabrina & Corina and the book club’s “homie pick” of Die Nigger Die! came from journalist Najma Sharif. The books can be found in the club’s partner bookstores or libraries.

OPRAH’S BOOK CLUB

The book club is finishing its December book, Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout.

READ WITH JENNA – TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB

Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano

“I choose ‘Dear Edward’ because it is a book about love and loss and finding your way after the unthinkable,” said Jenna Bush Hager on Today. “I thought to start our year off, even though hopefully nothing this dramatic happens in everyone’s life, we can all think about a new lease on life.”

REESE’S BOOK CLUB

Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid

“You’ll follow a young women’s journey of self-discovery after she’s wrongfully accused of kidnapping a child,” Reese Witherspoon and her book club wrote in Instagram posts. “This story is a beautiful conversation starter about race, privilege, work dynamics.”

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2019 Literary Lookback: The Rise of Noname’s Book Club

Noname

Rapper Noname started a book club this past summer and has amassed a strong following with mostly millennial readers looking to discover a variety of books from authors of color.

With its August launch, the book club selected two books: Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire and We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby. Two books remained a constant over the months, with the latest twin picks being The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon and Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi.

The book club blossomed on social media—now having almost 67,000 followers on Twitter and over 38,000 followers on Instagram—and then moved to in-person meetings in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Cincinnati, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. Photos from the meetings and from members make up most of the timelines on the two social media networks as well as vintage and stock photos of black people reading books. Letting members know they are seen and supporting their reading goals shift the book club, though helmed by a celebrity, away from the celebrity book club model that usually keeps the conversations online and seldom acknowledges members.

From cult classics to the words of emergent authors, Noname’s Book Club highlights books that speak on human conditions in critical and original ways.

That’s Noname’s Book Club’s mission statement, and it shows in the actions the group has taken to make an impact on the diverse consumers the literary industry tends to ignore.

supporting black-owned bookstores

The book club sends members to black-owned bookstores in seven cities to purchase the picks and some holding in-person meetings. One example is The Reparations Club in Los Angeles, which has quickly become home to many black creatives since opening earlier this year.

boycotting Amazon

Buying from the independent bookstores came from the book club’s stance on not buying books from Amazon. The boycott movement, popular with many indie booksellers and especially black literary groups, is to bring money back to those booksellers, especially the ones catering to consumers of color since they are usually not the top indie bookseller in their regions. Amazon has been blamed for taking necessary book sales from indie booksellers, especially with the e-retailer giant gaining a stronghold in the publishing industry creating its own books and other media based on books.

connecting with public LIBRARies

This month, the book club partnered with the Los Angeles Public Library to help members find the selected books free of charge. The book club posed the question of what should be its next partnership, and many followers chimed in, with Binghamton, New York getting a lot of votes.

In less than six months, the book club has made a major impact in magnifying the visibility of readers and authors of color, so the next year may bring more advancements in celebrating these literary stakeholders.

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Singer Amerie Kicks Off New Book Club With ‘The Water Dancer’

Amerie announces her new book club / Instagram

Amerie, best known for her 2000s R&B singles Why Don’t We Fall In Love? and 1 Thing, announced on YouTube she will be launching her new social media book club with making The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates this month’s inaugural pick.

Over the past few years, Amerie has been reinventing herself as a literary talent with her video book, beauty, and lifestyle blog. She contributed to the forthcoming black girl magic anthology, A Phoenix First Must Burn, that’s being called “Beyoncé’s Lemonade for a teen audience.” Her editing credits include another young adult anthology, Because You Love To Hate Me, and she has plans in the works to release a debut novel. She made a surprise return to music last year with the twin albums, 4AM Mulholland and After 4AM.

“For so long, I know you’ve been wanting the book club, and I’ve been reading the comments, but I didn’t know how I exactly want to do it and I believe I figured it out,” Amerie said in her announcement video.

She said her book club will “feature books by authors sent to us an array of different perspectives, voices, and I hope we can come together and learn from each other, listen to one another, also be heard, and embrace and celebrate our differences, and come away from the whole thing somewhat changed.”

Instagram and YouTube will be the main outlets for the book club conversation. The selections will be announced on the first Wednesday of the month with reminders throughout the month and final conversations at the end of the month.

Oprah’s Book Club famously chose The Water Dancer as its first pick in its Apple-backed reincarnation.

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Celebs Help Oprah Promote Book Club Revival With ‘The Water Dancer’

Audiences can watch “Oprah’s Book Club,” a new exclusive series on Apple TV+, starting November 1, with the first installment featuring an interview with “The Water Dancer” author Ta-Nehisi Coates.

Angela Bassett, Mindy Kaling and Lena Waithe are a few of the celebrities who have shown support for Oprah Winfrey’s book club comeback through social media posts posing with the latest selection.

Oprah, who announced her new book club will be on Apple TV+ in March, has named author and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates’ The Water Dancer as her first pick on Instagram with the hashtag #ReadWithUs. Queen Sugar‘s Dawn-Lyen Gardner and Mixed-ish’s Tika Sumpter also shared photos of them casually reading the book.

Tuesday’s episode of The View, surrounded by co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg, Abby Huntsman, Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, and Meghan McCain, Ta-Nehisi discussed the premise of his novel.

“The story is about an enslaved man in antebellum Virginia by the name of Hiram Walker. His father, in fact, is the master of the plantation, his enslaver, who has sold off his mother who was enslaved obviously. It really is the story of Hiram wanting what all enslaved people wanted at the time: freedom, but coming to understand that freedom actually means a confronation with some past, really really horrible memories specifically what happened to his mother. He’s gifted with a preternatrual memory. He can remember everything except the things that are most intimate and most important to him, specifically what happend to this mother. His freedom, as it turns out, is actually tied to his memory.”

The last book to make Oprah’s club selection was Michelle Obama’s Becoming last November.

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Indie Rapper Noname Enters the Book Club Game

Noname / Billboard

Rising Chicago rapper Noname has announced she’s starting a nationwide book club that will have meetings at local bookstores owned by people of color.

Noname, aka Fatimah Nyeema Warner, made the announcement July 14 via Twitter, that Noname’s Book Club will feature works by women of color and LGBTQIA+ writers. The two August book selections are Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire and We Are Never Meeting In Real Life by Samantha Irby. In a tweet Thursday, she said she’s looking for bookstore affiliates to hold meetings.

In a world of celebrity book clubs mostly led by white women non-authors, Noname is the second prominent black woman this month to start a public book club. Novelist and memoirist Roxane Gay had her first book club meeting last week discussing Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys that’s being televised on HBO and online at Vice.

Earlier this month, Noname was reminiscing on how her mother, Desiree Sanders, at 25 in 1990 was the first black woman to own a bookstore in downtown Chicago with sharing a business profile on Twitter. According to the profile, the bookstore sat in the back of a beauty supply store with counting celebrities such as Maya Angelou, Chris Rock, and Damon Wayans as visitors.

Instagram

With recent singles like “Song 32,” Noname had canceled the majority of her summer tour due to ongoing health issues. She still has concerts in Los Angeles, where she currently lives, and Chicago, her hometown, set in August.

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Celeb Bookwomen Announce Their June Book Club Picks

Reese Witherspoon / Hello Sunshine

Here’s a quick roundup of the celebrity-helmed book clubs and their June books:

Actress and producer Reese Witherspoon chooses The Cactus by Sarah Haywood for Hello Sunshine.

“Susan, our main character, navigates a love triangle, family drama, and being pregnant for the first time at 45. Hope y’all love Susan as much as I do!,” Reese said in the announcement.

 

Sarah also wrote an exclusive essay for Hello Sunshine about the themes resonating through her novel.

 

NBC correspondent and former first daughter Jenna Bush Hager chooses Searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Kwok for Today Show Book Club.

“It’s a mystery,” Jenna said in the announcement. “Sylvie Lee is the main character and she’s a golden child. She disappears. The story unfolds as her family copes and discovers all the secrets surrounding her life.” She added the team unveiled the book club pick later than usual because the book was released on June 4.

Belletrist, the book blog administered by actress Emma Roberts and producer Karah Preiss, also chose Searching for Sylvie Lee for June with its branded digestible interview with the author.

Actress Emma Roberts’ Our Shared Shelf on Goodreads is still reading Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, a book the bimonthly book club chose in May. The book also is a National Book Award Finalist and now available in paperback.

“Min Jin Lee is unabashedly a feminist and her resilient female characters propel this riveting story,” the book club wrote in its announcement. “Lee has written a moving, historical saga that is also a timeless masterpiece; almost 500 pages long, and we didn’t want it to end. This brilliant, eye-opening novel is about outsiders, minorities, the disenfranchised and yet somehow embraces us all.”

Indie rock pop band Florence + The Machine is reading three books for its Between Two Books club: Read and Riot by artist, activist, and Pussy Riot founder Nadya Tolokonnikova; My Mother Was a Freedom Fighter by Aja Monet; and The Terrible by Yrsa Daley-Ward.

 

“The title of Yrsa Daley-Ward’s book, ‘The Terrible,’ can mean different things to each reader. It can be a feeling you can’t quite word. It can describe depression. It can refer to the things you fear,” the book club tweeted June 6.

 

Side note: Florence + The Machine’s 2011 album Ceremonials is a wonderfully lyrical and musical album for a writing session.
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Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Picks ‘From Scratch’ for May Book

Reese Witherspoon / Hello Sunshine

I only knew that after five years of widowhood, I had a story inside that gnawed at me. And that, if I didn’t commit it to the page, I would suffer another kind of grief..And I wanted to share all that through a prism of food, with the island of Sicily as a central character. Strange as it may sound, I also wanted to write about lentils.

Reese Witherspoon’s book club, Hello Sunshine, has chosen From Scratch: A Memoir of of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home by actress Tembi Locke as its May selection along with publishing a personal essay from the author.

The memoir centers around the author’s grief of losing her Sicilian chef husband to cancer while returning to his homeland to feel his roots. She finds comfort at her mother-in-law’s dining table with a family that didn’t accept her at first as an African-American woman living in Los Angeles as an actress. But now as family and raising an adopted daughter, she narrates her journey through heartbreak and restoration.

Locke, according to her Simon & Schuster biography, has appeared in over 40 television shows and films, including NCIS: LA, Animal Kingdom and Dumb and Dumber To. She also delivered a TEDx talk on being a cancer caregiver. She lives in Los Angeles and summers in Sicily with her daughter.

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Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Picks ‘The Night Tiger’ for April Book

Reese Witherspoon with The Night Tiger / Hello Sunshine

Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine book club selected The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo for its April monthly pick.

A fourth-generation Malaysian of Chinese descent, Choo lives in California like the two previous authors whose books were chosen by Hello Sunshine, Taylor Jenkins Reid of Daisy Jones & The Six in March and Jasmine Guillory of The Proposal in February.

The Night Tiger is described by its publisher MacMillan as:

Quick-witted, ambitious Ji Lin is stuck as an apprentice dressmaker, moonlighting as a dancehall girl to help pay off her mother’s Mahjong debts. But when one of her dance partners accidentally leaves behind a gruesome souvenir, Ji Lin may finally get the adventure she has been longing for.

Eleven-year-old houseboy Ren is also on a mission, racing to fulfill his former master’s dying wish: that Ren find the man’s finger, lost years ago in an accident, and bury it with his body. Ren has 49 days to do so, or his master’s soul will wander the earth forever.

As the days tick relentlessly by, a series of unexplained deaths racks the district, along with whispers of men who turn into tigers. Ji Lin and Ren’s increasingly dangerous paths crisscross through lush plantations, hospital storage rooms, and ghostly dreamscapes.

The publisher adds the book would greatly appeal to fans of Isabel Allende and Min Jin Lee, author of recent best-seller Pachinko.